Church leaders gather to discuss church planting in Wales

Over 200 church leaders from a range of Welsh churches met recently in Newtown to collaborate on evangelising the nation.

The gathering was hosted by Waleswide, a network of evangelical churches which works with leaders to see churches established especially where there is no evangelical church presence, and where churches need to be strengthened in their effectiveness.

During the day, the results of a survey commissioned by Waleswide in 2011 were released. The poll of over 260 Welsh church leaders found that during the first decade of this millennium 5,728 people became Christians in their churches. However in 2010 alone, 1,642 became Christians.

According to survey of UK church attendance published by Tearfund in 2007, Wales has the least number of regular church goers (12%) and the highest number of closed de-churched - people who once had some church contact and are resistant to any further engagement (46%).

The Waleswide survey identifies so called 5:2 churches. These are churches which have seen five people from outside their faith community become Christians between 2000-2010 and two declaring a personal faith in 2010.

According to the survey, larger churches in the south of the country with more than 100 members have seen the greatest growth, particularly church plants and churches which are part of newer networks.

These 5:2 churches all share a common approach to connecting with their various communities. These included meeting the needs of their communities through debt counselling, Foodbank, working with prisoners, Street Pastors, and particularly working with families and young children.

David Ollerton, Chairman of Waleswide said: "The people who gathered all had a common cause; to see Jesus honoured in Wales and for churches to reflect him. The greatest challenge facing church leaders in Wales is to develop intentional gospel communities, as new churches or within existing, that are more interested in reaching out to people with few or no Christian links instead of maintaining existing structures.”